Page 34

 
Health Care in Waukau 
  At one time in 1846, only one 
woman in Waukau was well and 
she drove to Ceresco with wheat 
to be ground into flour for the 
whole village. She also collected 
the mail for everyone. Fever and 
ague had laid the whole town low. 
  Nell Webster Hyslop, a practi- 
cal nurse and midwife like her 
mother before her, said, "It was 
like malaria." 
  Mrs. Hyslop also remembered 
Doctor J.A. Foster who came to 
Waukau after he had served in 
the Civil War. She said patients 
sometimes quailed at taking the 
medicines he concocted out of 
roots and herbs he gathered. To 
calm their fears he always took 
the first dose himself. 
  The old doctor always wore a 
Van Dyke beard and a small 
mustache. He walked with a 
decided stoop and liked to pace 
with his hands clasped behind his 
back and his feet encased in soft 
carpet slippers. All the pills and 
instruments he owned were 
carried in a pocket case. 
DRUGS, MEDICINES & CHEMIC' 
   PALVTS.#fLS~, 41SU,1T 
Pure Winew and iUquors forIAedietia 
     DYVE WOODS ANDQ DYE STU  WS ENRALLY 
 ý&Medi    t g=o, itrd W t e qeLATT 
 ~Xem  w.t ., WAPE~AUc M, 
  Maud Packard Gay (Mrs. 
Eugene) treasured a poem written 
by Doctor Foster telling how he 
was paid with a cord of wood for 
delivery a Packard baby. Mrs. 
Gay remarked, "Those were the 
days when, if you wanted a 
doctor, you went after him and 
took him back home again." 
  Eugene Gay said Doctor Fos- 
ter's favorite home brewed medi- 
cine was named "Composition 
Tea." No one knew what was in it 
-- or wanted to. His standard cure 
for lung fever (pneumonia) was an 
onion poultice or a mustard 
plaster. 
  Another mainstay for health 
care in Waukau in early settle- 
ment days was Lucy Garlick 
Leach (Mrs. Warren). She and her 
husband ran a tavern on Wau- 
kau's Main Street. She always 
acted as midwife and counseled 
with the Indians as they came 
through town on spring and fall 
migrations. She had once been a 
missionary to the Indians in Can- 
ada and knew 26 Indian dialects. 
  After the days of Doctor Fos- 
ter, came Dr. B.R. Gaskill. He 
was never a well man, from the 
   ~ 2~crm~nn, 
tqdtte.    ot~i,~~rieeift coo %eotle4,c  ,ehet~'oR, 
*e~e ~tiAti~td hO T2'I¶,~z Wd4~ -. 
       230ff ~'to l'ub~ifwino tLi~nn ~kut. 
         f~UJF#hLO, I'. V. 
Doctor Pierce's Family Medicine put out a small booklet, of which only the
cover now 
remains, with the name Fred Lincoln penciled on the top. A calendar inside
is for the 
date 1878, on the back is the name A. A. Cole, dealer in Drugs, Medicines
and 
Chemicals, paints, oils, and varnishes, pure wines and liquors for medicine,
dye woods 
and dye stuffs generally. Medicines were warranted genuine and of the best
quality. 
Address: Main Street, Waukau, Wis. All the rest was in German except the
Pierce 
address, R.E. Pierce, Buffalo, N.Y. A large engraving of Pierce's dipensory
in New 
York was on the back cover above the Cole name. Mrs. Jesse Tice Hotchkiss
remembered the drug store when she was a child, that the proprietress was
called "Ma 
Cole," and that she sold postcards. 
                                                -34- 
time he left medical school until 
he sickened and died in Waukau 
June 18, 1867 at the age of 36. He 
still owed money for his college 
education and his wife Roxanne 
opened a hat shop to support her- 
self and pay off his debts. She 
later married Mr. Fairbanks and 
was noted for her extensive 
flowerbeds and her gifts of 
flowers to the church for wed- 
dings and funerals. 
  A good deal of healing went on 
in those simpler times through 
home remedies. One Waukau 
woman used to hang a bottle of 
angleworms by a string out of an 
upstairs window. After the sun 
had done its work the resulting oil 
was rubbed on her rheumatic 
knees. The bottle is best remem- 
bered by the Waukau youngsters 
of that time as a good target for 
practice with slingshots. 
  Mrs. Jesse Tice swore by crush- 
ed horseradish root applied to the 
back of the neck as a cure for epi- 
leptic fits. Maryette Walker often 
detailed the value of an infusion 
of cranesbill to soothe a baby 
with teething pains. Her father 
had his pet way of preventing 
colds. He ate a raw onion sliced 
paper thin every day of his life. 
The whole Walker family swort 
by a dish of wild greens as the 
best kind of spring tonic. Into it 
went mustard, dandelions, lambs 
quarters, clover, dock, -- "any- 
thing a cow eats is good for 
humans," declared Maryette. 
  In an old family Bible was a 
clipping dated February 1910, 
which offered a recipe for a sys- 
tem builder to restore health and 
vitality if taken one tablespoonful 
at bedtime. It contained sirup of 
sarsaparilla, oris root, and half a 
pint of whiskey. 
  Daniel Wright explained that 
some Waukau residents swore by 
Doctor Daniels of Omro, a homeo- 
pathic doctor who gave small 
amounts of drugs to produce 
symptoms similar to the disease, 
believed to be nature's way of 
combating an illness. 
  The last doctor to practice in 
Waukau was Dr. Peter Mac 
Dougall who lived in the large 
home across from the present 
Lynn's Tavern. He died in Wau- 
kaii in the early 1920's. 
  Waukau never had a dentist in 
residence, but the local doctor 
could pull a tooth that was giving 
trouble. 
}